Tag Archives: Funeral home

What do you see when you think of teens living on the streets of a city? Do you get angry, compassionate, or think it’s a shame, but not your problem? Be ready to see these teens in a different way.

In this novel, Borys introduces readers to Jo Sullivan, a reporter who started out just looking for a story, but who finds so much more. Most especially, she finds Chris Young, a young graffiti artist living on the streets, surviving however he can. Together they look for the truth, not only about a funeral home, but also about themselves.

“Midnight interviews at funeral parlors – not exactly the way they mapped thing out in Journalism 405: Strategic Communication Research. But then nothing about Jo’s situation now related to what life had been back then.”

Jo comes to care about Chris, as do readers, with Borys painting a picture of life on the streets of Chicago that will absorb and involve readers as the reality shocks and captures them.

Norelle Done posted her recent review of Painted Black at her Seattle Wrote blog site. She gave the book four out of five stars, which is a win by anyone’s calculations. Here’s how she tallied up the score.

Amidst frozen corpses, a funeral home scandal, and each character dealing with their own ghosts and closet skeletons, this novel comes down to a key point – the people that live on the streets are mostly forgotten when they disappear.

Plot: Painted Black is easy to follow, interesting, and gets you hooked – I was drawn into Lexie’s plight and found Jo’s investigation easy to keep up with. The story flowed well and fit together like a puzzle, and it didn’t feel too coincidental either. Star Awarded.

Characters: I felt like Deb went 75 percent of the way with the characters. There was back story, but it wasn’t resolved or fully explained, such as what really happened with Jo’s dad, or Chris’ family, or more into why Jack is involved with the homeless. Maybe there will be more in future Jo Sullivan books, but I was slightly left hanging with this one. Half-Star Awarded.

Setting: The setting for Painted Black is supposed to be Chicago, but I found myself feeling like it was Seattle more than once. Granted, I have never been to Chicago, and all of the Seattle-based books I read probably tainted things a little bit, but I feel like more could have been done to make it feel like Chicago. However, the book did have the trait of feeling like it could be any city, and with the focus on the homeless, it could help the reader to adopt the story for their own city. Half-Star Awarded.

Originality: It’s definitely a unique story. From the characters to Deb’s intimate understanding of what the homeless face, Painted Black is a one-of-a-kind story. Star Awarded.

Style: I noticed one or two errors, but none were glaring or distracting. Star Awarded.

That’s a total of Four Stars. Borys depicts the street life and struggles in an engaging, interesting way that draws you in and helps give a little perspective into the lives of the homeless. Maybe the next time you see someone huddled in a door frame or sleeping on a park bench, they won’t be quite so invisible.

What the Hell?

Chicago, freeze-dried bodies, kids sleeping on the streets. That's what this blog is about. What's what my novel is about. Dark urban graffiti, hard rock music and doing what you gotta do to survive. Small glimpses of the novel mix with snapshots from real life. You tell me which posts are real and which are fiction. If you can.